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First PD holiday

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2016 11:31 am
by Dibs
Hi all.

I've booked my first holiday since I started on PD, a two night lad's trip to the Costa Brava. My nurse is arranging Baxters to deliver two boxes of fluid to the hotel. I usually do APD, but shall be doing manual changes for this. I thought that I would post on here to check that I haven't forgotten anything.

My nurse has lent me a flight bag that doubles as a mains bag warmer. I should be getting a letter explaining my condition to whoever needs to know. She has also given me some small bottles of hand gel. I guess that thorough hand washing with a different soap will suffice. One of my boxes will be of extraneal so that I can go longer between some exchanges. I have told my hotel to expect the delivery. My nurse suggested putting the empty bags in the ordinary hotel waste, but I guess I could take one of my usual disposal sacks. So with my meds, bag clamps and connectors, I'm hoping to get away with just that one flight bag. Anything that I have forgotten?

Re: First PD holiday

Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2016 2:17 pm
by SKM23435
My local council advised that all the waste bags and tubing from my APD just went into the normal household recycling. It starts out sterile, there is no blood to contaminate and the used fluid is no more infectious than urine would be and babies nappies go into household waste. If you put your waste bags into yellow biohazard bags and place in hotel rubbish you are lightly to start a diplomatic incident.

Have a fantastic holiday and let us know how you get on.

Re: First PD holiday

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 12:59 pm
by lashy
Have a brilliant time!

I can't offer any advice, other than as a mother to older teenagers:
Everything in moderation!
Enjoy yourself, but not at the expense of your health.

Good for you for going!

Re: First PD holiday

Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2016 12:29 pm
by Dibs
Thanks for the replies.

The sacks my council provide are yellow and black, but don't have a biohazard warning on them.

Moderation is the only way I can consume most things these days. It certainly doesn't take many pints to fill me up!

Insurance has put me off before as the price seemed to be more than the holiday, but TravelTime were only £20 even with answering their questions truthfully. Admittedly it is difficult to judge them until you need them.

Re: First PD holiday

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 4:10 pm
by Dibs
Well it went ok.

After speaking to my nurse, she said that I could switch from APD to CAPD with a manual change at night to a Dianeal solution and a morning one with Extraneal. She ordered two boxes of fluid to be delivered by Baxters to the hotel. She also lent me a flight bag that doubled as a mains bag heater. A letter arrived from Baxters a week before I departed saying that they would be delivering to the hotel two days before we arrived there. The hotel emailed me to confirm the delivery. I bought a travel pack with the right sized containers and transferred hand cleansers etc into those.

At the airport security, my catheter set off the alarm but lifting my shirt showed them why. Boarding the plane, they wanted to put my bag into the hold, but I took the sticker off and went on board with it. The hotel delivered the boxes to my room on arrival. The changes went ok. I put all the waste, including all but one of the unused emptied bags, into a sack and left it in the room on departure. I took one bag to the airport, but when I saw that that the flight was on time I poured it down the loo. However... as we were waiting to go to the departure gate, we noticed an aircraft land on the runway with some fire engines in attendance. Its landing gear had seized. The flight before ours and one after were eventually cancelled as I sat there wondering what I would do without any fluid bags. Fortunately our flight did leave some four hours late.